Cuba by Liz Lochhead

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Choose one moment from the play you think the dramatist makes especially memorable and show in detail why you feel that moment is so successful dramatically. One of the moments I find most successful dramatically is the moment when Barbara Proctor, during a Poetry lesson, starts crying when she is told to read aloud the last stanza of the poem "La Belle Dame sans Merci". The poem has such a powerful impact on her that she cannot contain her fear and anxiety about the situation the world is going through. "La Belle Dame sans Merci" seems to affect Barbara more than anything else in the story. This may be because of several reasons but, above all, the fact is that the poem deals with a delicate issue: death. This may be the "powerful connection" which deeply affects her, death and the nuclear threat. ...read more.

Middle

This can be connected to Barbara's settings since probably she cannot see anything ahead of her - only the war, and what consequences it might bring. This is showed previously on the play; when Barbara says "if there is a next week", which is evidence that she cannot see the world in the distant future, without a war; her whole life seems to hang by the possibility of a nuclear war. The poem appears to make Barbara understand what death really is, as she can see a concrete example, though imaginary. One last interpretation of the story might be that the knight falls in love with somebody he cannot understand at all: "in language strange she said..." and which he is unfamiliar with: "took me to her elfin grot". Barbara's situation seems to be the opposite of this: she is afraid of something that he fully understands and is familiar with the consequences it might bring. ...read more.

Conclusion

The peak of this shocking moment is when Barbara partially recovers and puts into words her fear: "I'm frightened. I'm frightened there is going to be a war". The reader can imagine what the atmosphere of the class is: complete silence, paralysed students. It is very effective the fact that all the students are expecting to hear the teacher's opinion, as all the previous teachers do not take sides in the situation, but give them a neutral point of view. The author's choice of including this particular poem is suitable for the story's plot and for the setting of the Cuban missile crisis. It places the real conflict in an imaginary situation and, although the tale can be interpreted in several ways, it is very much related to death, something which concerns Barbara, her classmates and the teacher, who does not seem to know what to do. ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Other Authors section.

Related GCSE Other Authors essays

Overall, Meenah seems to be quite stuck in the middle. What's more, George's conception of the Indo-Pakistani war is related to culture because he is Pakistani and thus biased towards Pakistan. "Bloody India stir up trouble in Pakistan. They bloody ask India to come, maybe take Azad Kashmir belong to Pakistan whole country Muslim see.

when it's all done up...I'm not there....I don't have to listen to anyone arguing and shouting at me' At this point the reader acknowledges that although Sajit is just a child he is fully aware of all the conflict and arguing at home and it really affects him.

In my opinion 'The Browning Version' is a combination of the two. Some of Rattigan's plays were successful enough to become films and TV dramas 'The Browning Version was no exception. The first film (Asquith version) came out in 1951 and starred Michael Redgrave as Andrew.

Pip feels rather out of place in London; he isn't used to their method of travelling in hackney coaches or the way in which the man in Mr Jagger's office was treated. He isn't sure of the manners or what to do upon arriving in London.

On one hand if the second monster was created Frankenstein's family would be saved. On the other hand the rest of the world could have the fury and terror of two monsters thrown upon it. Even though Frankenstein began his work for the good of man his experiment ended up hurting himself, his family, and society.